At the Cathedral on
Wednesday evening Bishop Christopher confirmed one of our own, Louise Clitheroe, in the faith (see the image). The Bishop prays for the candidates: ‘Let your
Holy Spirit rest upon them: the Spirit of wisdom and understanding; the Spirit
of counsel and inward strength; the Spirit of knowledge and true godliness; and
let their delight be in the fear of the Lord.’ When I was confirmed on 11 May
1961, the Bishop of Woolwich used the old form of words which had a similar message for the candidates: ‘daily
increase in them thy manifold gifts of grace; the spirit of wisdom and
understanding; the spirit of counsel and ghostly strength; the spirit of
knowledge and true godliness; and fill them, O Lord, with the spirit of thy
holy fear, now and for ever.’
Both
prayers had a similar ending with ‘the fear of the Lord’ or ‘thy holy fear’. By
this is meant a combination of human sentiments towards God: awe, reverence,
submission, respect and love. Henceforth living in ‘the fear of the Lord’,
guided by the Holy Spirit – or, in the words of one prayer the ‘blessed Spirit of Holy Fear’ – means that we are a new creation. As Paul tells us in Galatians 6:15, this experience of being a new
creation is the most important thing in our lives; it is ‘everything’. It
outweighs everything we were before by a considerable amount. In Christ Jesus,
Paul tells us in Galatians 3:26, we ‘are all children of God through faith’. We
now share an intimate personal relationship with God himself: Christ dwelling
in us brings about this nearness. We ‘are no longer strangers and aliens, but …
citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon
the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the
cornerstone.’ We ‘are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God’ (Ephesians 2:22).
This process is often called the ‘mystical
indwelling of Christ’, and has been called ‘the
secret of the Christian life of victory, of fellowship with God, and of the
sense of nearness of God.’ Paul does not explain the process here, but does so
later on in Ephesians (3.17): there he tells us that the indwelling of
Christ by the Holy Spirit makes us ‘rooted and grounded in love’. When our
Saviour is at home in our hearts, we become spiritually strong and fruitful as
a tree that is deeply rooted in the soil. His indwelling also enables us to be
grounded in love as a building is made firm by its solid foundation. The
indwelling Christ is the ground of unity and love between God and man and
between man and his fellow men. Reconciliation with God brings about – and
requires – reconciliation with man.
Christians, we are told, ‘are sent into
this world to be people of reconciliation’. Sometimes we find this very
difficult. Others may have hurt us, done us wrong or who have been so difficult
in their behaviour that we find it almost impossible to do business with them.
We may find it difficult ourselves to pray for them. But the Holy Spirit,
working within us, can strengthen us to pray for them and makes possible what,
at first sight, seems impossible for us. When our Saviour is at home in our hearts, we
become spiritually strong and become able to do the most difficult thing and
seek reconciliation with those who do not wish to reconcile with us.
Christ dwelling in
us makes us capable of doing things which we would not naturally feel possible
or even desirable. In 2 Corinthians 5:19, Paul tells us: ‘For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself,
no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful
message of reconciliation.’ And Paul summarizes Jesus’ work of redemption in Colossians 1:20: ‘Through the Son, then, God decided to bring the whole
universe back to himself. God made peace through his Son’s blood on the cross
and so brought back to himself all things, both on earth and in heaven.’ Thanks
be to God.
